Farewell Uncle Ho 104
This is a work of fiction. Names of characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously; any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Dennis Milholland – All rights reserved. Other than for private, not-for-profit use, no part of this work may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any form or by any means, other than that intended by the author, without written permission from the copyright holder.
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Farewell, Uncle Ho
by Dennis Milholland
questions and comments are welcome. www.milholland.eu / dennis@milholland.eu
Chapter 104 (Saturday, July 29t, Sunday, July 30, 1967)
Bu and Hao's uncle, who had a very good plan to get us to Dalat, was a cheery man of about forty. But, of course, in this part of the world, looks deceived.
His idea was that there was an ancient elephant migration path, which crossed both near here and near Dalat. The wild elephants used it to relocate, according to the season, to renewed supplies of food. And since this was in the middle of the year, there was little chance of confrontation. And if we were, in fact, to meet up with wild elephants, there shouldn't be any problem, unless there was a man-eater amongst them. But according to the latest news or legend, the man-eater, that had plagued the area a quarter of a century ago, had been killed off by the French Expeditionary Force in ’53. And he doubted that any other elephant had been turned into a man-eater, since.
I didn’t know that you could turn a plant-eating elephant into a vicious carnivore, but it seemed that you could. And apparently it virtually always had to do with humans taking the elephants’ traditional habitat for farm land or battlefields, according to Bu and Hao's uncle.
The sun was just coming through the cloud cover, when the uncle brought Grandma's elephant around for us to load. I had virtually nothing, except for myself, and the twins only had some books, and a couple of trousers and shirts for going to church. Otherwise, like all men in the area, they wore a loincloth and went barefoot.
Again, Bu and Hao took me by the hands to meet the elephant. The cow was about twenty years, and their grandmother’s sister, according to the twins.
I glanced at Père Martin, who did not pontificate on the official stance of the Vatican, which maintained that animals and humans could not be related, since, according to the dogma, animals did not have a soul, but he just grinned and shook his head. Père Martin had been in the Highlands long enough to know that no matter what he said, the people would never let go of certain ideas. That elephants were family members was just one such idea.
She seemed to accept me; when I hugged her trunk, her trunk hugged me back. Of course, I was aware that the presence of her two grandnephews and one nephew had a lot to do with her attitude. I had to giggle, when she used the tip of her trunk to tickle my neck.
“Shouldn’t we get some sort of weapons for the trip?” I asked the uncle in my version of Tây Bồi pidgin.
“Why weapons?” He wanted to know. “Elephants no problem.”
“No, no, I wouldn’t use a weapon against an elephant.” In fact, I would more likely shoot another human than an elephant. “No, in case the Viet Cong or the Vietnamese Army, no matter which side, shows up." I tried to keep the verbiage simple.
Everyone laughed. My dour face must have demanded clarification. Père Martin explained that the Viets were afraid of elephants.
“But aren’t you an ethnic Viet?”
The priest clicked his tongue twice, which meant that I was not only wrong but dead wrong. His face had to relax before he could tell me in no uncertain terms that he was Khmer. Differences in ethnic identities and the importance thereof were becoming extremely clear.
***
The elephant’s name was Suzanne and, according to Père Martin, she had been named after the wife of the Vichy-French Governor General Decoux. Biting French irony had certainly not been lost on the Montagnards.
Bu and Hao taught me the fundamentals of driving an elephant: tug the left ear to turn right; tug the right to turn left; compress both knees on her neck to stop, etc. The only problem was that sitting on Suzanne’s neck was like trying to get comfortable astride a steel-wool pot cleaner. Her hair was coarse, brutally scratching my groin, no matter how gentle and loving she was. Fortunately, Grandma gave us a large, coarsely woven blanket to sit on, before we departed.
Once we'd left, the first thing I learned was that if you didn’t want to get wet, then an elephant was the wrong choice of transportation and the Central Highlands of the Republic of Vietnam was the wrong place. Uncle had not affixed the bamboo platform onto Suzanne’s back, where we could have taken turns resting, waiting our respective turn at driving. Instead, we took numerous breaks, also intended to let me rest my groin from elephant hair and the rug and to let Suzanne be free to be herself, under the watchful eyes of her nephew.
The elephant migration paths were always never far from water. They went through dense jungle and through lush clearings. We had the whole spectrum of landscape, hills with and without spectacular, low-hanging cloud, with and without rain. We saw sunshine streaking through dense forest and turning into rainbows in mist-like drizzle.
While taking a break under the shelter of a rock ledge, behind a small waterfall, I expressed my concern that I needed to take my weekly malaria prophylaxis, as soon as possible, which, of course, I didn't have with me. Père Martin explained that by burning elephant dung, it kept malaria-carrying mosquitoes away, so I should be alright until we got to Dalat, which would be tomorrow.
Not that I was worried about arriving at Dalat, I just wondered how the two new additions to our family would be accepted. As I watched, through the thin vale of the waterfall, the blurred vision of Bu and Hao, playing in the water with the elephant of their grandmother along with the slightly smaller and probably quite a bit younger elephant of their aunt, upon which their uncle and Père Martin had been riding, made me wonder how much they would miss their home.
As if reading my mind, Père Martin, grabbed my arm. “You are doing the right thing.”
“Taking them away from their home, is the right thing?”
“Don't worry, Benton.” This was the first time, he’d called me by my first name. "They aren't accepted in the village." He sounded saddened. “They are only tolerated, because their grandmother is head of the clan. But once she’s out of the way, they’d be driven off.”
I glared at him incredulously. “But they’re such a pleasure to be--”
“--and the wrong race.” Père Martin said flatly, truthfully. “Their father was driven off. It all happened very subtly, but …”
The priest let his sentence drift off, and I let my thoughts wander. I couldn't fathom how anybody could mistreat such lovely kids. At that moment, I knew that they were, in fact, my sons. I had to chuckle at the parallel my subconscious was drawing to the idea that Suzanne was their grandmother’s sister, but the parallel strengthened my resolve to be a good father. I swore silently to be the best father, I could possibly be. And although it made me a little sad, I swore to be a father to these kids, like Bat had been to his, not like my dad had been to me.
Letting my mind drift back to New York, I realized that Jackie, Bat’s youngest, was only a few months younger than Bu and Hao, but there was a world of difference in their maturity. If I didn’t stop him, Bu would gladly manage my life, as well. Basically, I was dealing with two eight-year-old adults. And Jackie, although he was growing up in arguably North America's most violent city, was still a kid. I wondered where I would have to draw the line. Basically, I would have to appraise each situation on an individual basis. This, and it dawned on me of a sudden, was not going to be easy.
***
I knew from the height of the mountains and the thinness of the air that we were high up, when we broke for the night. Bu and Hao’s uncle knew exactly where we were. According to what he said, he would bring a couple of elephants down to the Lang-Bian Palace Hotel during the dry season in the winter for tourists to ride.
I took their uncle off to one side, as we led the elephants down to the stream. I explained to him that I would rather give him some money rather than to support the Catholic Church, and didn’t want Père Martin to get wind of the amount that I wanted to give him for his efforts.
Uncle had been kind to me, even though the rumor had blazed through the womenfolk of the settlement, that I wasn’t ‘the marrying kind'. And I wanted to give him the 4,000 Dong, which I’d originally set aside to pay the local militia.
He laughed at me, his left-front tooth missing. “You know I have to hand this over to Tata.”
“I do.” I reasoned. “But it’s up to you how much you give her.”
“You telling me to keep some?” He laughed even harder. “You never question why women wear skirts with pockets and men loincloths?” He then became serious, almost pensive. “And it would breach her trust.”
***
I made my way back to the cave, where Père Martin was trying to light a fire, using elephant dung as fuel, by rubbing two sticks together. I flipped out my Zippo, which was a flame thrower in comparison. He looked on with trepidation, but then saw the advantage of using a lighter. “Just think how handy that would be, lighting incense and candles.”
“And it’s wind- if not Satan-proof.” At first he glared at me, but then, he did laugh. “Don’t let me forget to give it to you, once we get to Dalat." I opened my pouch. "But I can give this to you, now.” I pulled out the five-hundred Dong and the booklet of gasoline coupons. ”Speaking of which, how long do you think it will be before we get to Dalat?”
He chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. “I’m running on faith alone.”
Bu and Hao appeared out of the clearing, to the left of the cave, having gathered dry wood to add to the fire. "About fourteen hours.", Bu said with confidence. Hao chimed in with: “Uncle told us that it would take about twenty-seven hours, and that we would break for the night at halfway.”
Since my arrival in their midst, I had not seen another timepiece, except for my own, which led me to believe that they were doing all these calculations in their heads. I grabbed them and pulled them into me. I had to chuckle, when my subconscious reasoned that, of course, every father was steadfast convinced that his children were geniuses.
***
After I’d told Uncle that Jules’ house was on the ridge, above town, behind the Dalat Palace Hotel, we stuck to the ridge, so that the fine people of Dalat wouldn't think that they were being invaded and shoot at us. We arrived at the grassy field behind Jules' gated community, where the helicopter had landed, at about half past four.
My heart was pounding against my rib cage. Uncle got down from their elephant, leaving the rest of us seated. He made a sign with his hands, and I saw the twins putting their fingers in their ears. By the time my brain had kicked in and told me to follow the lead of the twins, it was too late. Both of the animals let out a deafening trumpet sound.
And there it was, the magic of the circus. The smell of elephants, the high anticipation brought about by their trumpeting. People were looking out the many windows of the houses. I saw Urs' and Gerry’s blond heads round the corner of the house at full pelt toward the gates, which Jules had already passed. The Montagnard gentleman, who watched after the gated community, was hurrying toward us, ahead of Jules, grinning. Yvette and Wade, returning from a pre-dinner walk, broke into a run.
Now, that everyone had arrived, and their focus of attention was off the more obvious elephants, they began to recognize the less obvious two boys. I signaled Gerry to come over to help the kids off. Hao was the first to slide off Suzanne. Gerry caught him and looked as if he, Gerry, were holding on for dear life. The boy touched his golden hair, kissed him on the cheek, and snuggled into Gerry’s thick neck. The look on Gerry’s face told me that he'd definitely found a purpose in life.
Bu jumped off Suzanne and landed on the ground, next to Gerry and his brother. I followed him down. The second I'd landed, Bu jumped onto me piggy-back. He leaned in, next to my ear. “Looks like Hao really likes Gerry.”
And to have judged by Gerry’s looks, I’d have been very surprised if the feeling hadn’t been mutual.